Fireworks

As I cycle in today and have to swerve around several silly 4x4's poking their noses in at junctions, I ponder on the merits or otherwise of being clipped by one. I've always worked on the assumption that the bonnet of a normal car isn't too bad a place to land but being impaled on the bars on the front of one of those monstrosities. No thanks.

A colleague of mine at work is enthusiastically training for next years the Erewash Tri, which isn't until July, so he's got plenty of time to lose that enthusiasm. Also, so far, he’s refusing to train for the swim part. Which I can thoroughly relate to but he's going to have to face it at some stage, just like I had to.

Talking of Tri's, there's a chap from Derby who's been on local radio because he's qualified for the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Florida. Despite that feat though his wife is still refusing to let him buy a £3,000 time trial bike and says if he's got that sort of money then he can take her on holiday instead. Well firstly a holiday would be over in a week and his bike will see him good for at least a year and also isn't she getting a nice holiday anyway, to the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in Florida? Some people are never satisfied.

L isn't in work today, so I'm not getting emails from her, well apparently she is sending them from home, but our hopeless email system is swallowing them somewhere.

On the way home a cyclist tucks in behind me and tails me, I hate it when they do that, I do it all the time, all I can see is his front light. Thankfully he soon turns off and leaves me in peace.

I get home safely, dodging the fireworks that have started already. It's not been too bad for the last few weeks but I imagine this weekend is going to be horrible for Doggo.

L and I settle in the bedroom, protecting Doggo from the fireworks. So far he's taking it fairly well, chilled on his back having his tummy stroked. I'm the same.

Daughter is keeping watch upstairs waiting for the display at the junior school to start, although elsewhere the blue touch paper has already been lit. In fact there's plenty going on that I can enjoy without even getting up off the bed. There's quite a show being put on, fireworks a plenty, rockets going up. Eventually the school kicks off too; L is torn over which display to devote her attention to. Eventually she runs upstairs to join Daughter and nearly misses one particularly large explosion that rocks the house but she catches it before she goes. Doggo is hiding in the corner but its impressive stuff.



After the fireworks are over we catch the bus over to Derby, leaving Smash Hits radio, or was it Kerrang, on for Doggo to drown out any more bangs.

We hit the Flowerpot. Oakham 5.7%. Sarah Hughes 6%. Black Hole 5.5% Deventio 4.5% Not bad. Nearly all dark. I misread the bus timetable and we are hanging on for the 11.50 bus until we realise there isn’t one and catch the 11.20 instead.

Match Abandoned

Turn down L, I have to take the car in for a service. As I'm leaving Doggo is just coming back from his walk. He's distraught at me deserting him; you’d have thought he’d have got used to me going to work by now. L reckons he refused his treats and sat sulking in the living room after I'd gone but I don't think that's anything unusual, he's a fickle dog.

Drop the car off at the garage and walk the rest of the way to work. I'm a little late getting to work but that's mainly because I was sitting in the car laughing at Derby City Council trying to defend ‘ghost town’ Derby since the new shopping centre opened. Not that it's really any laughing matter, retailers outside the centre are experiencing falls in trade of around 80%. Many won't see in 2008.

Seems that the council even let the shopping centre owners Westfield buy the huge building previously occupied by Debenhams, presumably to get them to move to the new centre. Of course now Westfield have just boarded it up, there's no incentive for them to re-let the place as it would just take business from their ‘baby’.

The council have even increased the rents of the shops left outside the centre, pure money grabbing but pointless because if all the shops shut, which now seems likely, they’ll get less money. You would have thought they would have cut their rents, at least short term, until the shops can build back up some trade. Madness. Totally clueless, a typical council.

Not going to the pub today, my colleague has forgot we’d agreed to start going weekly again and he’s not brought his car in. News from the garage, is that ours needs a new ‘pollen filter’. I didn’t even know I had one.

Squash and my opponent is complaining that he's stuck with his diet, reduced his alcohol and even done a bit of running but all that's happened is that his now weight now varies by about several lbs each day. He says that can't be normal. I understand that’s perfectly normal if you’re a woman.

Our match is abandoned part way through because he smashed his racquet against the wall when I won game five to bring the score back to 3-2. I was just getting warmed up as well. We retire the pub where the beer range is very dull this week, I settle on a Batemans XB.

Get home where L has already got the wine open, I join her for a glass or three. She's also cooked a fantastic spicy rice dish.

When we retire to bed, L is struggling to stay awake so I turn down her kind offer and spend half an hour reading instead. Then I change my mind which comes as a bit of a surprise to L.

Another Dead Hamster, Almost

As I cycle in this morning I am surprised to see a runner coming towards me down the road between Risley and Borrowash. He's in the cycle lane and strangely he seems to expect me to get out of his way. Now if I saw some mad cyclist powering up the hill towards me, I'd be the one getting out of the way.

I have my new thermal flask with a coffee in it; it's not bad but not terribly hot. It also requires a different method to drink successfully from it; I poured my first few mouthfuls down my front.

For some unknown reason, I've signed up to the Shepshed Seven race on Sunday, that's seven as in miles not kilometres, regrettably. Today I had a browse down the entry list and cross-reference it with my list of 'friends'. One name sends a shiver down my spine, ‘that women’, the who wiped the floor with me at Ticknall, the one in purple, is in it. I had considered using a relaxed approach to prepare for the race and even have a few shandys on Saturday night but obviously now I’ve got to take it seriously.

L seems thrilled when I tell her; she says she'll look forward to the head-to-head racing, the tooth and nail stuff. I feel weak at the thought. I’ll need some serious TLC on Sunday afternoon.

L promises that she won't let ‘that women’ pet Doggo. She shouldn't let anybody pet him until she's asked them what their PB for 10K is, if it’s better than mine is, then they can go pet some other dog.

You have to be very careful whose dog you pet. Only this morning L said that Doggo had, what she describes as, an unprecedented growling session at a Yorkshire terrier, just because she petted it. She reckons he was jealous because he wishes he was a lap dog. Well firstly, Doggo practically lives the life of a lap dog anyway, so I can't see that's what he was complaining about. Secondly, had she considered that perhaps the owner had beaten me in something and Doggo had remember, or maybe the terrier did agility and had more rosettes than Doggo.

Virgin Wines deliver our new case of wine to work, not exactly fast, not exactly Wiggle. I also have no idea how I'm going to get them home on my bike. It'll have to stay here until I next come in the car, which will be Monday. Hope L doesn't drink us dry in the meantime. L suggests that I could put some in my drinks bottle. Now that would be interesting.

On my ride home, and no there is no wine in my drinks bottle, I'm bombing along Derby road, with this other chap, in the bus lane. We're not racing but you know... well we catch up with this teenager riding one of those diddy mountain bikes that are only big enough for eight year olds. His legs are whirring away like a hamster on its wheel. He's in the bus lane too, without lights, and he's zigzagging all over the place, desperately trying to become one very dead hamster. To be fair he's probably all over the place because his bike is so small that his knees are smacking him in the face as he rides. As the other chap goes past him, with a sudden lurch to the right, hamster boy almost takes both of them into the traffic in the next lane. I back off; it's not worth the hassle, I'll leave them to die alone.

I'm on Derby Road because I've abandoned the Ilkeston route now that it's dark in the evenings, there's too much fast scary traffic appearing out of the gloom that way. Also I think heading to John Carroll might be easier via the QMC roundabout rather than the evil Crown Island. I'm right, QMC is a doddle, but then I make the mistake of cutting back through to Ilkeston Road. A mistake because the road is closed. There's an awful lot of blood over the road and a car with a person shaped dint in its windscreen. There was that many police there, that it would have been a good time to commit a crime elsewhere. I managed to squeeze through.

It's very quiet at the pool and I get a lane to myself. In fact we almost all do, eight of us chaps to share the six lanes, oddly no women in the pool at all. I had to watch five minutes of boxercise to compensate.

It's Halloween tonight, I'd almost forgotten. Daughter has gone to guides on her own and L is a bit worried about her. Hmmm, would be embarrassing for her if she got mugged by a load of eight years olds in Harry Potter hats. Halloween is just not the same these days. When I was a kid it was actually quite scary to be out and about. In those days people were out door knocking, chucking things at windows, playing pranks, and the like. Generally trying to spook you. In a way Halloween was for big kids but nowadays its big business, has gone all Americanised and the little kids have taken over. You get loads of them dressing up in lurid costumes out trick or treating, all with their mums in tow. Not exactly scary. I blame Steven Spielberg. I'm sure it was ET in 1982, where Elliot and co dressed up on Halloween, which first alerted us to this American tradition. Although that's probably not strictly true, we’d seen trick or treating before that in John Carpenter's film Halloween, where Michael Myers escapes from a Mental Institution and terrorises everyone. That film however had the opposite effect, making you want to stay in on Halloween night.

I'm starving when I get home and pig out on loads of bread and soup. Then I take Doggo to class, which goes well until he gets creased and bored, at which point he decides to down tools. Which means he ends up back in the car, although perhaps that's what he wanted.

Back home L is creased too, too much running, swimming and yoga. So I snuggle up with Rae Earl instead. Why would anyone want to call themselves Rae? It seems a common choice these days; does it mean they all wished they'd been born a man? What's wrong with being called Rachel, or Rach?

Getting Rather Broody

I spend probably too long limbering up for my bike ride this morning, but L seems very insistent that I do so and I don't like to argue. So I'm a bit late leaving and have a bit of time to make up. L takes Doggo out on the paper round.

A lycra clad blonde babe gives me a smile and a cheery wave as she passes, eyeballs out, in the opposite direction. I couldn't help but slow down to get a better look. Phoarr, that is seriously sexy, no not the girl, well not just the girl, the bike, I'm sure that was a carbon frame Trek she'd got between her thighs. Gorgeous. Bet she'd got a compact chainset too, probably full Dura Ace. I'm afraid I'm getting rather broody. I think I'm taking this cycling too seriously.

Son's started doing archery at college. This is their enforced 'enrichment'. L is hoping it's going to enrich all our lives and this will the 'thing' he was born to do. She's really looking forward to a day out in London in 2012, watching him take on the world. I hope she's not getting her hopes up too high.

He had his first session last night, so it must be indoors, unless they've been shooting arrows in the dark, which doesn't bare thinking about. L's surprised it's happening after college and not during one of his multitude of 'free' periods. She doesn't realise how intense college life is, he doesn’t have ‘free' periods he has 'study' periods. It's not a life of Riley being a student you know.

Wiggle deliver again, this time my thermal bottle and overshoes, which are like galoshes. Will L still fancy me in rubber boots? Hmmm, they're not exactly sexy.

L confesses that she's been eyeing up the blokes again, apparently to check out their rucksacks. I hope I've got that right. She says she saw one and liked the way it sat around his waist. I assume she's looking to buy one for running. I'll show her mine later.

I cycle home without any mishaps and then go out for a run with my reluctant dog. I fancy the long route around the university but I let him choose the run tonight. Naturally he heads straight for the park, which is locked of course, and I have to steer him towards the pond instead. It's probably for the best that we’re not doing the long haul round the university; I have the possibly of another two bikes, a swim and a squash match coming up this week before my race on Sunday.

L's out, having an evening of gossip followed by a Broadway Bite, without me. She doesn't seem to be looking forward to it that much; says she often can't get a word in edgeways. She reckons she'd rather be running, even with Doggo. Now that is pushing it. Well if all else fails she could always sit there with her Ipod on.

When L gets home she looks quite high, yet she's not been on the alcohol, she's been on the herb teas. Obviously dangerous stuff. I wonder if she's inebriated enough to be taken advantage of. Yep, thought so.

Artistic Integrity

As usual on Monday I take the car in.

Derby County announce that they have a new Executive Chairman. Adam Pearson joins the board and replaces Peter Gadsby. His job will to try and attract people to invest in the club. Good luck, he’ll need it.

L is still working her way through War and Peace and summarising it for me. In her latest précis it’s finally starting to liven up a bit. Mainly due to the men having women trouble of course. Although L reckons it’s down to the men being silly and childish, fighting over the women. Well yes, isn’t that the way it’s always been. She’s under pressure to keep reading, as we have the play booked for February. It’s a bit like having the pressure of a blog to update.

I'm still confident that I’ll be able to précis her précis down to around one hundred words and have it on the back of my "I’ve Read War And Peace" t-shirt.

L’s decided to skip her psycho gym circuits session tonight because Daughter has homework to get in. Instead she’s going to do a dog free run while Doggo is out at training. She’s going to go round one of our old training routes to see if she can manage a 10K. I’m sure she’ll miss Doggo’s help.

Post run she aches but seems pretty smug about it. All she needs now is a good warm down.

Dog class goes well, although it’s all rather dull, we're training specific things tonight and we don’t get a blast round a course. Get home and L has done posh fish and chips. Sea Bass and chunky chips. We live in style.

Someone has put something called an ‘anti-dullness foaming gel’ in the bathroom; which sounds like something out of Harry Potter, a personality changing potion or something.

As I’m minding my own business, trying to update this blog, Daughter interrupts and hands me a contract. Luckily it’s almost illegible, so I can honestly say I haven’t read it but I assume it concerns what I can and cannot put on this blog. That would of course compromise my artistic integrity; I’m having none of that. I consider signing it ‘Mickey Mouse’ but she whisks it away before I get chance and then oddly tries to eat it. The lesson is of course, don't let your Daughter read your blog.

Started a new book tonight, Daughter's mad person’s diary thing. 'My Fat Mad Teenage Diary' by Rae Earl. Very enlightening. The year is 1989 and the period detail brings back memories. The author is seventeen in 1989, I’d be twenty one and apparently all the girls were gagging for it. Well that wasn’t the impression they gave as far as I can recall, if only they’d been more upfront about it. As for the goings on in the car parks, well Stamford was obviously the place to be. One things for sure I can sleep well at nights now knowing that whatever I blog about, it can’t possibly be a bad influence on Daughter when she reading stuff like this. I look forward to picking it up again tomorrow.



Rae Earl has done rather well for herself, a former presenter on Ram FM, where edited extracts of her diaries were first broadcast, she now presents the Breakfast Show on Leicester Sound with her co-presenter and husband Kevin Johnson.

Don't Talk To Strangers

It's early, despite the extra hour with the clocks having gone forward and I’m knackered. L obviously isn’t but I’m not one for fighting her off.

I get up and do some training for next Sunday’s Shepshed race. Surprisingly Doggo seems keen to join me. We do our usual route; we are creatures of habit. I think he's relieved to get a rest when we see someone we know and stand chatting for five minutes or so. He lays down, a heaving mass in the long grass. The run goes well, for both of us. We don’t see many other dogs and he runs by my side for quite a stretch.

I head off to Derby for the match and drop L and Daughter in Derby at the same time. They check out the new shopping centre but don't stick it for long, retreating to the tranquillity of Sadler Gate.

Today's match preview says that Everton deserve a break after being victims of some strange refereeing decisions last week. They should count themselves lucky, we were victims of some strange management decisions last week, and there's more today. If the aim was to score goals we'd have started the game with more than one striker on the pitch. Not until there's half-an-hour to go do we finally get to see the invisible man unwrap his bandages and finally make an appearance. At last the Miller/Earnshaw combination that everyone wants to see. Well, for all of three minutes before Howard comes on as well and Miller is moved onto the wing, so we're still none the wiser.

Overall it's a poor, error-strewn performance and Everton win at a canter 2-0. Some natives are calling for a new manager; a popular choice is Graeme Souness. Which shows what little people know, what's he ever achieved as a manager? People can't complain, everyone put up with our great leader's tactics last season because we were thrashing teams 1-0 despite often being played off the park. Unfortunately you can't bore teams into submission in this division. In my opinion, Billy Davies got us into this mess by getting us promoted, so he can sort it out.

We spend the evening in the company of my favourite author Ian McEwan. I haven't read any of his books but I'm working my way through all the films. We watch the Comfort of Strangers on DVD. L thinks we've seen it before and she may be right but I don't have a memory for these things. Harold Pinter also had a hand in it, so you know it's going to be extra weird.

A thirty something not-so-happy couple called Colin and Mary (Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett) return to Venice, the scene of a previous holiday, seemingly to decide whether or not to continue their relationship. The obvious answer seems to be a very definite no. They must annoy each other because they both annoy me. Neither can seem to summon up much interest in the other, yet Mary seems to want Colin to propose to her or at least move in with her.

Then they meet the local psychopath, a bar owner named Robert, played by Christopher Walken. Walken is, as ever, excellent. They are strangely drawn to him and to his equally strange wife, Caroline, played by Helen Mirren, who seem to have an unnaturally intense interest in them and whose marriage seems to be a perverted mixture of violence and lust.

Colin and Mary are appalled by all this but at the same time are still drawn to it. In fact it seems to stimulate them. Suddenly, as Colin and Mary continue their holiday, they find that their interest in each other has been rekindled. In fact they seem to be constantly making love. Energized by this, Colin finally feels ready to commit himself to Mary but she feels energized too and brushes his offer aside. It no longer seems to be enough for her.

Then there’s the ending, almost straight out of Eastern Promises, where Colin becomes the victim in Robert and Caroline's perverse game.

One message to take from the film is to do what your mother always told you and ‘Don't talk to strangers’.

L’s watched the whole thing in her French knickers. She knows what I’ll think she’s after in that sort of outfit. I take her to bed to talk psychopaths.

I've been taking this relaxing the units idea a bit too seriously. 39 of them this week.

Babes On Motorcycles

A nice lie-in today with all the trimmings and enough time for pudding. When we finally get up, I take Doggo on park with his ball.

L is broke, so I offer to take Daughter to the cinema this afternoon and then take L tonight. Daughter and I go see Ratatouille, while L meets a friend for a run. We’re at the Savoy which certainly isn’t Broadway; this is fidget central and the venue for the 'who can make the most noise with a carton of popcorn competition'. The two girls next to me, both well into their teens, easily out do the five year olds with their eating habits. Far messier than Doggo and Daughter put together. When one of the girls stands up at the end of the film the two rows in front of her are almost swept away in an avalanche of popcorn crumbs.

The film itself is your everyday tale of boy meets rat, becomes world-renowned chef, as you do. The boy, Linguini, inherits the restaurant of the famous Gusteau, whose motto was ‘anyone can cook’ but the boy can't. Luckily for him the rat can.



The boy/rat combination impresses everyone, especially the kitchen's sole female chef, the scary knife wielding Colette, who whisks him away on her motorcycle. Fair enough, you're not going to resist a leather clad leggy French babe astride a motorcycle now are you but this doesn't impress the rat and it nearly all goes pear shaped. Particularly when Peter O'Toole shows up as the restaurant critic from the Grim Eater but the rat and his friends save the day and impress him with the rat’s signature dish of, yep you guessed it, Ratatouille. Although I wouldn't have been terribly impressed if they'd made we wait as long for the food as they did the critic.



The film is entertaining but spoilt by the usual American moralising, don’t steal, don’t do that, don’t do this etc. That apart the film is occasionally funny, occasionally clever, and anything that sees a character voiced by Jamie Oliver getting bound, gagged, and chucked in a storeroom, must have something going for it.

In the evening we decide not to find out why Lisa is on sex strike at the Lakeside Arts Centre and head off to Broadway instead, where we can get a whole meal for the price of a glass of wine at Lakeside. We use our new City Card's, which work well and get us a free trip into town. The food is Thai Beef Red Curry, the beer Nottingham’s Jo & Twiggy’s and Elsie Mo.

Tonight we see David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises which was shot exclusively in London. A pregnant 14-year old Russian girl arrives in A&E, haemorrhaging badly and with needle marks on her arms. The girl dies but the baby survives, Nurse Anna (Naomi Watts) is left holding the baby along with the girl's diary, which contains some very sensitive information, and a business card for a Russian restaurant. Anna attempts to have the diary translated in order to identify the girl's family. Watts, my second babe on a motorcycle in the space of just a few hours, and in a nice pair of boots, also goes to the restaurant but in doing so, she becomes embroiled in the dark world of the Russian Mafia, who want the diary back.



Viggo Mortensen, who plays Nikolai, the 'driver' to the mob, is outstanding. Nikolai is seemingly the cool, calculating part of the 'family' compared with the blundering son Kirill.



Cronenberg's mixes in his usual dollop of violence and treats us to two cut throats and an eye gouging, that oddly left most of the cinema in raptures of laughter. Mortensen performs the fight screen that leads to the eye gouging in a steam bath completely nude.

An excellent film with a good twist at the end.

Afterwards we walk up to the Ropewalk. Where I have another couple of beers but L can't manage her wine. She says she's feeling rough. She promises to faint on me but doesn’t deliver.

Is She Trying To Kill Me?

A pleasant ride in, although the weather is definitely dropping colder. I could have done with the thermal drinks bottle that I ordered the other night from Wiggle, with a strong coffee in it.

A decade or so ago you would have said that the fact it’s cold in October is a sign of a severe winter on the way but these days you just know that this will be about as cold as it gets. Shame, I like the cold.

Daughter is up bright and early. I know this because she’s started emailing me already. One of her emails refers to me as 'blog boy' so I call her 'gym bunny'. This could get petty.

L sends me an email about the Pennine World Extreme Trail Duathlon Championships. The first thing I notice is that the word ‘world’ is a bit misleading, as it’s in Glossop. Not terribly glamorous. Secondly it’s a bit on the long side. It’s a 100 mile bike which isn’t too daunting until you realise that it’s sandwiched between two full marathons and it’s all off road. In the two years since its inception only one person has ever finished it. Most of them seem to give up after taking over six hours for the first marathon. So perhaps not this year. L says she saw it and thought of me. I think she’s trying to kill me, I shouldn’t have told her about the life insurance.

She does however tell me to cycle home safely but I have to anyway as I’m carrying her new goggles that Wiggle have delivered.

When I get home (safely) L has cooked stilton topped muffins to refuel me, so she does love me after all, and there are quite a lot of them. After scoffing far too many I can barely get out of my lyrca, let alone contemplate a run to the pub. Yet this is what we have planned. It’s hard carrying around the excess weight, so it’s probably a good job we have to stop part way to do some fire fighting. Someone has being trying to set fire to one of the litter bins on the University campus. L resourcefully fills one of Doggo’s ‘poo’ bags with water and we extinguish it. Having done our bit for society we carry on our way.

At the pub I have St Austell Tribute & Three stouts and then home.

The Dark Side Of The Family

L goes to work early and leaves me with Doggo. He's very lively, socks everywhere. Not my socks thankfully this time. I don't mind him having my socks but he doesn't keep them together. I keep ending up with odd socks.

I'm driving, so I leave just before 8.00 and arrive at work just after 20 past, no traffic again.

L is convinced that Daughter is crossing over to the dark side of the family where my genes reside, with jokes like this old chestnut (see here). She keeps pulling them off the internet, just like you would a piece of school homework.

L says her head is spinning but I'm not sure if this is because of work, she's had problems with belligerent old men and part time staff, or Daughter's jokes. I’m tempted to tell Daughter to keep sending them because if L needs de-stressing again, I’m her man. Always up for a challenge and I'm quite taken with her de-stressing technique.

Daughter jokes now start arriving in my inbox, some of them are actually quite funny, apart from the 'geeky' computer ones she seems to think are appropriate for me.

Son has left the house again, to meet a friend in town. I thought perhaps he'd got a hot date and asked L whether she could smell any after-shave on him. Sadly not, must be gaming related then.

Pub. Giant Yorkshire and Irish stew. Beer from a new brewery in Burton, that I can't recall. My memory really is going, must be my age.

L has booked a step class, except it's not a step class because the teacher is injured, so she's told it's going to be ordinary aerobics instead. In the end she decides not to bother and says she's going to run with the hairball instead. That'll be stressful too, particularly as she's not speaking to him. I'm not sure there's going to be enough red wine in the house. Luckily I did put an order in for some more last night but it won't arrive for a day or two. Unfortunately Wiggle don't do wine.

My squash opponent says he feels worse than normal, his partner has kindly given him her cold. He reckons he might fall asleep on the court, which might give me a chance. As it happens it appears to be me that's asleep, in fact I'm not sure what planet I'm on for the first two games. My legs are stiff but I don't try and move them. I keep missing the ball and when I do connect with it, it goes in the wrong direction. I get slaughtered and go 2-0 down. At which point he seems to drop his guard, my game suddenly comes together and I come roaring back to 2-2. Having peaked I then lose a tight decider. We play two more games, it finishes up 4-3 to him.

Oldershaws beer in the pub. See I remembered that one. Rather nice too. Then Belgian Porter and something that resembles a sherry at home. We go to bed and in the words of Daughters joke,

'Lost at squash. Gutted. Got a shag though.'

An Innocent Bath

Alarm goes. Legs feel ok, so bike it is. I grab a warm-up and get my kit on.

The ride in goes well, as its half term all the tanks are currently off the road, which makes it infinitely more pleasant. Then again anything would have felt good after the hell of Ticknall. It was a tad nippy, thicker gloves are becoming number one priority I think. I refuel at work. I have some porridge, one of those exorbitantly expensive Dorset cereal bars and a glass of mango.

L says she can't bring herself to type good morning which isn't a good start. I tentatively enquire as to how it went with Doggo this morning and which lamppost she's strapped him to, just in case I need to go and rescue him. Turns out she did bring him home and now she's left him with Daughter and the TV. Not sure if that's meant as a punishment for Doggo or for Daughter?

She says she's cheering herself up with one of her Death Proof CDs of which she has two, thanks to the Royal Mail. They seem to have lost multiple things during the postal strike and now replacements have been ordered, things are turning up in pairs. All the retailers will put claims in with the post office, so it's going to cost the Post Office a fortune and presumably next years pay rise. I can feel another strike coming on. She describes the CD as very jolly. Which could mean almost anything. She describes Ian Curtis is jolly.

L's not working late tonight and should be home when I roll in, in my lycra. So I could head straight home and let her help me with a warm-down. Which is just the inspiration I need to set a new PB. Problem is I’d have to skip my swim as she’s going out again at 7.30 to yoga. Life is just one big decision.

L says I must swim; I must think 'Vitruvian'. Hmmm. I’d rather not think ‘1.9km swim’ thank you very much. My adventurous streak is still up in those foggy Ticknall hills, still pedalling away.

So I cycle to the pool and then realise I’ve left my lock at work. Bugger. I cycle to home and borrow Son’s, then I cycle back to the pool. I have a good swim, it’s not too busy, three people in my lane. They are psychos but nothing compared with those hardened types at Ticknall, I would hate to end up in the pool with them.

L goes to yoga and I drop Daughter there on my way to dog training. When L’s finished they’re going to do a gym session. Quite a pair of fitness freaks.

There are only four of us at the 'train your own' session. Excellent, lots of time on the equipment. Doggo downs tools after half an hour or so, totally creased.

L proposes bath and wine, rather than food. I don’t have a problem with that. Almost as soon as we've settled in the bath, Daughter bangs on the door and tells me not to blog this. Blog what? We're only having a bath. We may have misbehaved in the bath in the past but we were young and impetuous then. Anyhow it's much more fun in the shower.

We retire to the bedroom. L is very unbloggable. Two glasses of Rose.